The Broadband price war in India is raging hard. Now Bharti Telecom has cut its prices and is offering a plain vanilla 256 kbps service for about $8 a month, about $1.25 lower than similar offerings from incumbent rivals, BSNL and MTNL. I find that most Indian companies are offering metered broadband access, treating bandwidth like a scarce commodity. That is a bone headed move only thought up by bureaucrats who are used to playing the scarcity game. Growing up there, getting a phone connection was so hard and often involved baksheesh. That mentality prevails. These boneheads should realize that in order to stay competitive Indians need to have as much speed as they can get for the lowest possible price. Look at Koreans, and Chinese. [ Read the story in Times of India]
1 trackback so far
5:59 PM PT
Internet connectivity in Pakistan
Here I attempt to answer an age old question - is there any halfway decent internet connectivity option in Karachi?…
8 comments so far
5:59 PM PT
Its not just India. My brother who lives in Australia tells me that affordable DSL service is always metered. Unmetered DSL is very expensive apparently!
5:59 PM PT
well, metered broadband is like giving people a ferrari but only for 10 miles a day at 20 mph speeds. the cost is not an issue, it is more of an attitude. If costs were an issue, the Baby Bells wouldn’t have introduced flat price DSL to the market and would have found a way to squeeze us.
5:59 PM PT
Bingo on echoing my sentinments.
I had written up a similar statement just today !
And, I’m really frustrated with this metered access !!
Cheers,
Sudhir.P
5:59 PM PT
Yeah ! sure, there were those dark ages when getting a phone line involved years of waiting & praying … but the comment made by you is unjustified in the light of the giant leaps made the Mobile industry in India thanks in great measure due to proactive steps by the regulator in aggresively pushing policies that ensure lower prices to consumers thereby driving adoption
Am sure you can dismiss these growth pangs in the Broadband industry and look at what is possible a year or so down the line (even the mobile industry started with rates of about 45 cents per minutes and the same is now down to about 3 cents per minute !!!
5:59 PM PT
Check out Tom Evslin’s v.interesting post on the attractiveness of “flat-rate” or “all you can eat” pricing to both consumers and service providers:
5:59 PM PT
Mr Malik, we’re starting out. Getting a phone isn’t what it used to be. Things have changed since you grew up here. Competition is the name of the game.
9:21 AM PT
We have the same problem here in lebanon. Big headed officials seem to see internet as a luxury and a gold mine to cover the deficit budget.
Internet is much more than that. It’s an indicator of the willingness of the country to accept new technologies and attract new businesses.
Soon there will be ka-band satellite bidirectionnal broadband, and all you’ll need for cheap broadband anywhere in the world will be a 70cm wide dish.
Do these idiots really expect us to be paying 400 times the rate of developped coutries forever?
8:36 AM PT
Hii Guys
I want to join your blog.Well u guys have ny idea about the content which broadband can deliver??IPTV??
Cheers
Prashant
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